


Telepathy

by alessandralee



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Not really romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-03
Updated: 2013-12-03
Packaged: 2018-01-03 08:01:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1068011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alessandralee/pseuds/alessandralee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fitz is abducted, and Grant tries to help Jemma pull herself together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Telepathy

**Author's Note:**

> It's short, I know.

Jemma Simmons isn’t usually one to panic. Well, that’s not strictly true. But when she’s in her lab, she generally feels competent and in control.

But tonight is an exception. They’ve all just realized that Fitz is has gone missing, and, if the state of his side of the lab is any indication, he’s been taken. And no one is more worried about him than Jemma. She’s hunched over Fitz’s lab table muttering angrily at herself and Grant is pretty sure she’s a few breaths away from crying.

So he chooses to not to tell her about the dirty footprints and small blood spatters he spotted just outside the metal doors. Instead, while her head is bent, he silent points them out to Coulson, who slips out to take a look himself.

That leaves him in the lab with Skye and Jemma, May having already left to see if she can find any tracks through the brush outside The Bus. Skye is right next to Jemma, gently rubbing the other woman’s back and whispering to her that things are going to be okay, they’re going to find Fitz and bring him back in one piece.

Grant has never been great at offering comfort, so he busies himself taking stock of the rest of the lab. Jemma’s side of it is in near perfect condition, as she was in the field collecting samples when Fitz went missing. But Fitz’s side is a mess. There are bits and pieces of two of his Dwarves strewn about the table, along with a set of tools and electronic pieces that Ward doesn’t know much about. He figures that Fitz was working on them when he was abducted. A third Dwarf, one that Jemma has identified as sleepy, lies in two pieces across the room, surrounded by nearly an entire wall of Fitz’s tech pieces. Clearly, he put up a fight. Grant can’t help but smile at that.

There’s also a notepad sitting on Fitz’s worktable. Since Ward knows nothing about the gadgetry strewn about the lab, he figures the notes are the best place to start. After all, how hard can it be to decipher Fitz’s notes?

Very.

He can’t even read most of it, Fitz’s handwriting’s so bad. And what he can read might as well be written in a foreign language for all that he understands. Actually, he’d probably have more luck if it was written in a foreign language.

There is one word that he can both read and understand. It’s written a third of the way down the page and circled heavily.

Telepathy.

Ward’s not really sure what that has to do with men who traffic in humans juiced up with alien substances, but he figures Jemma might be able to piece together the notes. And he also hopes it will get her mind off of whatever is currently happening to Fitz. He doesn’t like seeing her like this.

“Jemma, why is Fitz making notes about telepathy?” He holds up the notepad to show her.

She looks up at him, and then the notepad, needing a moment to snap out of it take in what he’s asking her.

“Fitz thinks that’s how the traffickers are communicating without leaving a data trail,” her voice is thick, but he can tell he’s distracted her a bit.

“Is that even possible?” He’s heard stories, but most of them usually went hand in hand with dragons and other things he’s never seen outside of books.

She takes a moment to think. “In theory, yes. You’d first need a way to intercept a person’s brainwaves, and then you’d need the means to transcribe them into human language.” She sniffles occasionally, but her voice sounds more steady than before.

“Has it ever been done?”

“Not that I know of.” The more she focuses on the science, the calmer she becomes. “I had a professor at the academy who was working on it. Last I spoke to him, he had found the means to collect data from brainwaves, but was still trying to find a way to analyze them. And even then, the machines he was using took up an entire lab. Anything portable is virtually impossible at this point. Are those his notes?”

When she grabs the papers out of his hands without asking, he knows she’s back to herself. She briskly flips through the pages, stopping every so often to lament Fitz’s handwriting and poor labeling skills.

She’s holding the papers upside down in an attempt to read one of Fitz’s diagrams when Coulson reappears.

“Simmons, it seems the men who took Fitz tracked a lot of dirt in with them. It’s in the hall and in the cargo bay. I need you to collect it and see if any of its contents can shed light on where they’ve taken him.”

She on the other end of the lab, collecting her equipment, before Coulson has even finished speaking. Nothing makes her feel quite as in control as her job does. 

Grant is glad he was able to use Fitz’s notes to help her pull herself together, even if he doesn’t think they’ll actually pan out to anything. Not that he needs to, now that she has soil samples to analyze.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "telepathy" from tumblr user mnlkpo.


End file.
